


Memory

by itsrainingem



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, Idiots in Love, M/M, Pining, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 06:39:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18515968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsrainingem/pseuds/itsrainingem
Summary: In the darkness he can almost fool himself into thinking none of it was real.





	Memory

In the darkness, here at the end of everything, he thinks of him—eyelashes fluttering, throat bobbing as he swallows his first sip of water in days—

But no, he can’t think of him. He’s not allowed to, not anymore. He can’t picture a scrap of him. His mind’s eye doesn’t deserve the pleasure.

He thinks of him instead with all that makes him _him_ covered up. His bright hair is hidden. The amusement that hovers in his eyes, dark when he smiles—that too is hidden. The softness of his hands is concealed by blood and dust and grime. All that he is, all that’s so effortlessly lovely and gentle, all of it is stripped away. He’s unrecognizable. He is a creature of violence and pain.

He wasn’t born that way but forged into it.

That’s not a thought here or there, though. That isn’t a real thought at all. The drink in his bottle is swirling like some twisted version of it, the events of the past shrouded in the red glow of tail lights and the silent dance of smoke. It’s fluid, and it isn’t even clear. None of it is real.

What’s real, then?

He remembers water.

He remembers water of the ocean, remembers it glittering like a thousand beads decorating the streets on a morning in March. He remembers the salt of it in the air, remembers the way it made his hair feel tacky. He remembers the first time he laid eyes on his other, his second piece, _grand dieu_ he can remember that. He’ll sooner die, sooner forget his own name—and he has, he’s already lost his name to another version of himself but still, _still_ his other stayed. Eugene stayed.

He remembers water like milk, remembers it enticing and sweet and poisonous. He remembers the pallor of it like skin, remembers distinctly thinking that it’s nothing he’d ever want to drink, laying in a pit in the middle of a war, but even clouded with mud and dust and ash and who knows what else he would’ve given anything for a single sip. He remembers the blood clouding it and the poison. He remembers everyone crying in disgust, remembers _Eugene_ standing there in the middle pouring a single handful through his fingers, his brow knitted, and he remembers knowing exactly what was on his mind: there’s no proof one way or the other that it was poisoned by the Japanese, or by the Americans, or just by accident. There’s no way of knowing. Sometimes it’s better not to think about that. Sometimes it’s easier to blame.

What else does he remember?

He remembers the face of every single man whose teeth he stole.

What else does he remember?

He remembers walking by the banks of the river in the middle of the day, remembers his tiny footprints in the mud beside his mother’s. He remembers her whispering to him as they walked. S _ouviens-toi de ça, Merriell,_ remembers her whispering it again and again. S _ouviens-toi de ça._ S _ouviens-toi de ça, mon p’tit. Remember this._

What else does he remember?

He doesn’t remember the face of every man he killed. He can’t. There were many faces, even more which he never even saw. He can’t remember.

What else does he remember?

He remembers how Eugene breathes when he sleeps—shallow when he’s at peace, heavier when he’s stressed. He remembers how to wake him up in an instant, how to have him alert and silent and deadly in the space between words.

What else does he remember?

He remembers him, the way he walks. He could recognize his shape in utter darkness just by the way his shadow moves.

What else?

He remembers him and he can’t forget. He remembers that Eugene can’t forget either, and he wishes that he could. He’d be better off for it.

What else?

 _Heart ticked wrong. They wouldn’t take me at first._ He wishes it ticked wrong forever. He wishes it ticked horribly off time, wishes it was broken enough that he was unable to go to war, unable to love and unable to be loved. He wishes it were that easy.

What else?

He wishes they’d never met.

What else?

No, not that. He doesn’t wish that.

What else?

Eugene would’ve been better off, but he wouldn’t have.

What else?

Is that selfish?

What else?

“Merriell,” he murmurs, and his eyes are dark tonight. They look brown in this light. Maybe black.

What else?

He’s not really here.

What else?

The bottle is pried gently from his grip. “Come on.”

What else?

“Merriell, come on. Come here.”

What—

“Look at me. Can you hear me?”

His lips feel dry and they burn. He thinks of water then forgets it just as fast—water, milky white and poisoned. “You’re not real.”

When he imagines him he’s lovely and gentle and _kind_ , painfully kind. This one’s mouth twists in a grimace, and the next second the world is spinning as he’s hauled up. “I feel pretty real,” Eugene grits out.

He’s content to hang off him, shoulders strong under the loose frame of his shirt. What else? He remembers that. He remembers the hidden strength of him and it makes him laugh into his shoulder.

“If you throw up on me I’m dropping you,” Eugene tells him.

He keeps laughing because he can’t stop, and then he stops walking (walking? Where were they even going?) and forces Eugene to stop too while he just hangs off his shoulders and _laughs_ , laughs until his eyes cross and his breath doesn’t come right, laughs until he cries and he can’t get enough air, until spots rise in his vision, until he can’t even sob because _he can’t breathe_ —

Arms come up around him all at once.

“Corporal, _breathe._ ”

_Eugene Eugene Eugene Eugene—_

That’s him, hard and soft. That’s him, light and dark. That’s him, harsh and violent and silent and speaking volumes of his own thoughts through all of it. This is him, silent, breathing into Merriell’s ear, chest rising and falling slowly and pressed against Merriell’s own, this is him and his smell and his warmth and the strength of his arms. This is him.

S _ouviens-toi de ça._

He remembers him. He can’t forget him, never could, and Mother Mary help him but he doesn’t want to.

“Gene,” he gasps out.

Those arms pull him in tighter and he fists his hands in the fine fabric of Eugene’s shirt. “Asshole,” Eugene mutters under his breath, and Merriell feels it in his chest. Eugene holds his peace though, just like he always does—holds it behind dark eyes and a downturn to his mouth and a firm grip, holds it and holds it and holds it and one day it’s going to tear him apart, Merriell knows it will. One day he’s going to destroy himself trying to carry that burden without letting slip exactly how much it weighs.

“I’m not counting on it,” Eugene says.

Apparently the words are just coming out. They’re still coming out, just like water, and Merriell can’t stop them at all. “Go home,” he says. “You shouldn’t be here, Gene. Ain’t a place for you. You don’t wanna be around here with me. You should get going home.”

“You don’t have a single idea where you are right now, do you, Shelton?”

“Gene, I’m serious.”

“Merriell,” Eugene says, and _that_ gets his attention because it’s slow and deliberate and measured and that name isn’t supposed to leave Eugene’s lips in that tone. _Merriell._ He’s never supposed to say it like that, like he means it, like he’s tasting it. And then his next words just shock Merriell’s delirious brain stupid. “You’re in Mobile, Alabama.”

S _ouviens-toi de ça._ “I ain’t.”

“Yeah, well, I ain’t going home because I’m already here. Ain’t arguing over it, either. I don’t think you’re in any place to. Come on, I’m getting you someplace you can sleep this off.”

Merriell lets his limbs go lax until he’s just dead weight—and it’s irritating, honestly, how Eugene doesn’t even stumble under the sudden weight. “Leave me here, Gene. S’alright. I don’t wanna go home with you, I wanna stay here.”

“I’m not leaving you in some alley. Come on. You can crash at my place.”

“No, it’s your place.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

They’re moving again, the world still spinning. “I don’t wanna stay with you cause you’re happy,” Merriell gets out.

“What’s that even mean?”

“Cause you’re getting on with your life. We all gotta move on.”

He’s being led carefully through a car door and buckled in. The seat is comfortable if a little worn. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Eugene tells him, then closes the door before Merriell can answer.

When he gets into the driver’s seat he buckles himself, and Merriell can’t look away from his hands suddenly—clean, soft, tidy. “You’re doing good now cause you don’t have all our shit to worry about,” he babbles before he can change his mind. “And that’s good, Sledgehammer. You can’t dwell on shit like that. You gotta start fresh. Cut everything off and just start new.”

“That what you did?”

He closes his eyes as the car starts moving. The motion outside makes him queasy. “Can’t start fresh cause I can’t forget,” he murmurs. “Wish I could. You got a chance, you know.”

“I’m not forgetting shit,” Eugene says, quiet and sure.

“Should try.”

“I’m not. Did you think I would? That you could duck out and I’d just conveniently forget everything that happened? That it would all be better?”

“You’d be better off.”

“Fuck that.” His voice is still quiet but suddenly sharp and angry, and that makes Merriell look up. “Fuck that, Snafu. I’m not forgetting a single thing, good or bad, so stop trying to make me.”

The streetlights cast him bright as they go under, gold-black-gold-black-gold like mortar fire, on and off and on and off. It’s a piece of them—an ugly piece, sure, but once upon a time they were stove pipe boys first and men second, and friends somewhere toward the bottom of the list. It’s a part of this, a thread in the fabric, and Merriell hates that and hates a good fair portion of it but there’s one piece he’s quite fond of, and that bit just so happens to be sitting beside him.

He can’t be angry about that. That doesn’t mean he’ll just accept it.

“You’re better off alone,” he tries as a last-ditch effort, closing his eyes again and leaning his head against the glass of the window.

For a minute the car is silent save for the hum of wheels against the road. Then he feels fingers against his own, warm and soft and hesitant. Without opening his eyes he turns his hand over, and Eugene laces their fingers together. He squeezes gently and Eugene squeezes back.

Maybe it’s not right but his subconscious doesn’t care, ever soothed by Eugene’s presence and proximity. Maybe they’re horrible for each other; maybe they aren’t, not inherently, but somewhere along the way they’d twisted so far out of shape that they’ll never fit again. Maybe he and his soulmate were ruined to the point that they no longer even recognize each other.

It doesn’t matter. His mind sees Eugene, and knows. Eugene is safety. Eugene is peace. Eugene is a bright spot in the middle of hell, and rest, and warmth. Eugene is sleep.

World-be-damned, his moral compass thoroughly shattered, all else fades away. He drifts off in the space between gold and black, mind swimming on a rum-drunk sea, Eugene by his side. He’s glad about that fact, and he can’t even find it in himself to be guilty

S _ouviens-toi de ça_.

He’ll never forget.

The car continues on through the suburbs of Mobile, and he dreams.  

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, it's sad bitch hours and I drank wine and watched this dumb show again and wrote this and now here we are. It's one of those written all at once stream of conscience type deals, I don't even know anymore. I might write a follow up, we'll see. Let me know what ya think :-)


End file.
